While doing visual research for Hedda Gabler, I stumbled upon the 19th-century Norwegian painter Harriet Backer. I had never heard of her, never seen her paintings before. Several of these paintings depict Norwegian household interiors with women engaged in solitary tasks. I like to imagine Backer painted these women the way they might have seen themselves: intelligent and wistful for
HEDDA GABLER
a life that doesn’t stifle them. These women seem so melancholy in their living rooms and kitchens, and looking at them, I understand even more deeply why Hedda fears the dull domesticity of her married life with Tesman. The more I learned about Harriet Backer and her sister Agathe, the more I saw in them the life Hedda might have dreamed about living instead. Agathe Backer traveled abroad to study piano, and Harriet accompanied her, beginning her own visual art career. Especially in Hedda’s final piano melody, her aspiration to artistic and personal freedom breaks through. Henrik Ibsen wrote the words his heroine says, but only through the body and performance of a woman on stage does Hedda burst into life. While the women in Backer’s paintings are frozen at the desk or the piano, Hedda pushes on the boundaries of middle-class femininity in the pursuit of a beautiful life. Her circumstances press on her so that the only way to create beauty is to make art of a man’s destiny and her own. To say this, I do not glorify Hedda’s choices; rather I am attempting to see them through her eyes. To give her and the women of Backer’s paintings their due—to give the storytellers you will see onstage today their due. This whole ensemble was relentless in their own imagination: delving into domestic economy in the Belgian Low Country during the Middle Ages, the supposed future of culture, the story a Black woman’s hair tells to the only other woman of color in town, the precarity of being a servant and the power of being a police commissioner, the way transwomen navigated the 19th century, and everything in between. As the lights come up on the Tesmans’ living room, it’s time to join them. —Hannah Fennell Gellman, Production Dramaturg STUDIO PRODUCTIONS | 2021–22 SEASON ABOVE: Blått interiør by Harriet Backer, 1883. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Norway).
MAY 19–21, 2022
Production
DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE
Assistant Stage Manager
James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., Assistant Dean
Rob Chikar* (he/him)
Associate Safety Advisors
Jacob Santos Eric Walker
PRESENTS
Production Manager
Hedda Gabler by Henrik
Ibsen
Van Lieu
Creative Team Dramaturg
Hannah Fennell Gellman (she/her)
Consultant
Associate Production Manager
Sky Pang
translated from the Norwegian by directed by Ron
C. Nikki Mills
Paul Walsh
Crew
Michael Allyn Crawford Theo Dubois Andrew Petrick
Cast
Administration
in alphabetical order
Associate Managing Director
Tesman
Løvborg
(he/x)
(he/him)
Anthony Grace
Mihir Kumar
Joan MacIntosh
Juliane
Thea Elvsted
Assistant Director
(they/them)
(she/her)
Thomas Pang (yao)
Augustine Lorrie Alexandrite
Management Assistant
Kevin Jinghong Zhu
Commissioner Brack
Stage Manager
(he/him)
(he/him)
(she/they)
Chloe Knight
Jake Hurwitz
Bertram
Nakia Shalice Avila
Assistant Managing Director
Abigail C. Onwunali
(he/him)
Lucas Iverson
Emma Rose Perrin
Nomè SiDone Hedda Gabler
Isuri Wijesundara (she/her)
House Manager
Production Photographer
Leigh Busby
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
Setting A town in southern Norway, 1890 There will be one 10-minute intermission.
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
FRONT: By the Piano by Harriet Backer, 1914. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Norway). All patrons must wear masks at all times while inside the theater. Our staff, backstage crew, and artists (when not performing on stage) will also be masked at all times. The taking of photographs or the use of recording devices of any kind in the theater without the written permission of the management is prohibited.
Land Acknowledgment
Yale University acknowledges that Indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring and continuing relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land. The Studio Productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes this process. THE BENJAMIN MORDECAI III PRODUCTION FUND, established by a graduate of the School, honors the memory of the Tony Award-winning producer who served as Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theatre, 1982–93, and as Associate Dean and Chair of the Theater Management Program from 1993 until his death in 2005.
MAY 19–21, 2022
Production
DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE
Assistant Stage Manager
James Bundy, Elizabeth Parker Ware Dean Florie Seery, Associate Dean Chantal Rodriguez, Associate Dean Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., Assistant Dean
Rob Chikar* (he/him)
Associate Safety Advisors
Jacob Santos Eric Walker
PRESENTS
Production Manager
Hedda Gabler by Henrik
Ibsen
Van Lieu
Creative Team Dramaturg
Hannah Fennell Gellman (she/her)
Consultant
Associate Production Manager
Sky Pang
translated from the Norwegian by directed by Ron
C. Nikki Mills
Paul Walsh
Crew
Michael Allyn Crawford Theo Dubois Andrew Petrick
Cast
Administration
in alphabetical order
Associate Managing Director
Tesman
Løvborg
(he/x)
(he/him)
Anthony Grace
Mihir Kumar
Joan MacIntosh
Juliane
Thea Elvsted
Assistant Director
(they/them)
(she/her)
Thomas Pang (yao)
Augustine Lorrie Alexandrite
Management Assistant
Kevin Jinghong Zhu
Commissioner Brack
Stage Manager
(he/him)
(he/him)
(she/they)
Chloe Knight
Jake Hurwitz
Bertram
Nakia Shalice Avila
Assistant Managing Director
Abigail C. Onwunali
(he/him)
Lucas Iverson
Emma Rose Perrin
Nomè SiDone Hedda Gabler
Isuri Wijesundara (she/her)
House Manager
Production Photographer
Leigh Busby
David Geffen School of Drama productions are supported by the work of more than 200 faculty and staff members throughout the year.
Setting A town in southern Norway, 1890 There will be one 10-minute intermission.
This production is supported by The Benjamin Mordecai III Production Fund.
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
FRONT: By the Piano by Harriet Backer, 1914. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Norway). All patrons must wear masks at all times while inside the theater. Our staff, backstage crew, and artists (when not performing on stage) will also be masked at all times. The taking of photographs or the use of recording devices of any kind in the theater without the written permission of the management is prohibited.
Land Acknowledgment
Yale University acknowledges that Indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring and continuing relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land. The Studio Productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes this process. THE BENJAMIN MORDECAI III PRODUCTION FUND, established by a graduate of the School, honors the memory of the Tony Award-winning producer who served as Managing Director of Yale Repertory Theatre, 1982–93, and as Associate Dean and Chair of the Theater Management Program from 1993 until his death in 2005.
While doing visual research for Hedda Gabler, I stumbled upon the 19th-century Norwegian painter Harriet Backer. I had never heard of her, never seen her paintings before. Several of these paintings depict Norwegian household interiors with women engaged in solitary tasks. I like to imagine Backer painted these women the way they might have seen themselves: intelligent and wistful for
HEDDA GABLER
a life that doesn’t stifle them. These women seem so melancholy in their living rooms and kitchens, and looking at them, I understand even more deeply why Hedda fears the dull domesticity of her married life with Tesman. The more I learned about Harriet Backer and her sister Agathe, the more I saw in them the life Hedda might have dreamed about living instead. Agathe Backer traveled abroad to study piano, and Harriet accompanied her, beginning her own visual art career. Especially in Hedda’s final piano melody, her aspiration to artistic and personal freedom breaks through. Henrik Ibsen wrote the words his heroine says, but only through the body and performance of a woman on stage does Hedda burst into life. While the women in Backer’s paintings are frozen at the desk or the piano, Hedda pushes on the boundaries of middle-class femininity in the pursuit of a beautiful life. Her circumstances press on her so that the only way to create beauty is to make art of a man’s destiny and her own. To say this, I do not glorify Hedda’s choices; rather I am attempting to see them through her eyes. To give her and the women of Backer’s paintings their due—to give the storytellers you will see onstage today their due. This whole ensemble was relentless in their own imagination: delving into domestic economy in the Belgian Low Country during the Middle Ages, the supposed future of culture, the story a Black woman’s hair tells to the only other woman of color in town, the precarity of being a servant and the power of being a police commissioner, the way transwomen navigated the 19th century, and everything in between. As the lights come up on the Tesmans’ living room, it’s time to join them. —Hannah Fennell Gellman, Production Dramaturg STUDIO PRODUCTIONS | 2021–22 SEASON ABOVE: Blått interiør by Harriet Backer, 1883. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Norway).